Wednesday, March 05, 2014

At a press conference for Kremlin-controlled media on Tuesday, Putin reiterated his position that Moscow has the right to use “all means” necessary to protect ethnic Russians and vital military assets in Ukraine, first among them the Black Sea fleet in the Crimean port of Sevastopol.

Reader Comments and Retorts

Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.

I'm talking about broadening the GOP's appeal, by class. Again, I have no desire to restrict legal immigration.

Jason, we're not going to win back the socially liberal white suburbanites; they're too invested in the liberal/secular social agenda at this point.

The GOP needs to appeal to the socially conservative working class voter, who doesn't like the leftist agenda, but view the Republicans (largely correctly) as a bunch of WSJ elitists, who only want to bolster corporate profits by off-shoring, outsourcing, and variously screwing American workers.

BTW, a lot of the Hispanic and Asian immigrants are socially conservative working and lower-middle class. They're part of the group the GOP needs to reach.

Just like on abortion, the Republicans need to evince strong principles on immigration and trade, without demonizing immigrants or foreign workers. e.g. any illegal immigration crackdown should start with serious penalties on the employers.

Last I checked, Snapper, white working-class voters aren't in agreement with us on legal immigration.

I don't share your view that socially liberal white suburbanites are forever lost to the GOP. Governors Scott Walker, Rick Snyder, Chris Christie, and Susana Martinez are all pro-life, yet have demonstrated the ability to attract a significant portion of these voters.

Exactly. Until the 1960s, the controversies were about who would be permitted to come here legally, not how to cope with millions of people who arrived uninvited.

No no. People were certain that lots of Chinese and Mexicans were here illegally--and clearly many of them were--and some were certain that lots of southern and eastern immigrants were here illegally. What makes it confusing for us is judging exactly who was here legally and illegally. We resolved that confusion by successfully nationalizing immigration enforcement, so that you couldn't get lost in questions of whether someone violated California law but not Oregon. But it is a mistake to think that 19th century Americans believed immigrants were here legally. Among the waves of anti-immigrant fervor were strongly held views--some in retrospect accurate, some not--that lots of them were sneaking it illegally. The panic about illegal Chinese immigration was huge and violent.

On wooing Latinos through social conservatism, Latinos as a whole are slightly more likely than the average US person to favor acceptance of gays. On abortion Latinos as a whole are more likely than the average US person to favor abortion restricts, but that is very concentrated in first-generation. Second-generation Latinos favor legality of abortion more than the average US person. Third-generation are indistinguishableAccording to Pew

Democrats are becoming increasingly alarmed about their midterm election fortunes amid President Obama’s sinking approval ratings, a loss in a special House election in Florida last week, and millions of dollars spent by Republican-aligned groups attacking the new health law. The combination has led to uncharacteristic criticism of Mr. Obama and bitter complaints that his vaunted political organization has done little to help the party’s vulnerable congressional candidates.
. . .
Interviews with more than two dozen Democratic members of Congress, state party officials and strategists revealed a new urgency about the need to address the party’s prospects. One Democratic lawmaker, who asked not to be identified, said Mr. Obama was becoming “poisonous” to the party’s candidates
. . .
Mr. Obama’s approval rating of 41 percent in a Wall Street Journal/NBC Poll last week matched that of a New York Times/CBS News survey in February and represents one of the clearest reasons for Democratic malaise. Since the post-World War II era, that measurement has been one of the most accurate predictors of midterm results, and any number below 50 means trouble for the party that holds the White House. (emphasis added)

On legality and immigration, more broadly, I think 1) countries have a right to regulate their immigrants, 2) the US has established policies that encourage technically illegal but completely predictable migrations supported by large chunks of the business and political community, and 3) Somehow you have to devise a policy for the future that is clear and effective but also devise a policy for the existing people who were all but invited in that deals with that reality.

All politics makes bad history, but immigration political talk makes deplorable history. Many immigrants in the 19th century arrived illegally. Lots of people--not me as a good WASP!--are descendants of illegal immigrants. There's nothing surprising about that. Immigrants are looking to move. Most of them aren't lawyers. Lots of 19th century laws were difficult to figure out for lawyers. If you're from Bavaria or Kiev or wherever, are you clear on why somebody suddenly shifts you to Ontario then across the bridge into the US? Of course not. If somebody told you to lie about your age or your religion or your birthplace or your health status, did you do it? Every family of immigrants knows that this happened all the time. Did you get to the US and then suddenly find out you had violated some aspect of the law and then turn around out of a desire to follow the law of the US? I don't want to say that never happened, but the fantasy that this defined all generations of US immigration until the 1960s is pure fantasy.

None of this means that what I said above isn't true. Nations do have rights to pass laws and enforce them. But the historical comparison of legal vs illegal misses both the debate and the practice of the 19th-early 20th century. At that point the US successfully cut off most immigration and then mostly decided to forget about the people who were here unless they were Chinese, were involved in revolutionary activities, or created health crises, and I suspect we'll do the same this time, eventually.

But it is a mistake to think that 19th century Americans believed immigrants were here legally. Among the waves of anti-immigrant fervor were strongly held views--some in retrospect accurate, some not--that lots of them were sneaking it illegally. The panic about illegal Chinese immigration was huge and violent.

My point is that many 19th century Americans didn't want Chinese and Mexicans and Irish and Italians and Jews here, period. Arguments that some were reportedly coming here illegally was ancillary to their larger anti-immigrant points. They didn't want any more showing up at our ports or crossing the Rio Grande, legally or otherwise.

Since the post-World War II era, that measurement has been one of the most accurate predictors of midterm results, and any number below 50 means trouble for the party that holds the White House. (emphasis added)

I recall Nate Silver asserting in 2010 that 47 percent is the more accurate threshold.

Mr. Obama’s approval rating of 41 percent ...represents one of the clearest reasons for Democratic malaise. Since the post-World War II era, that measurement has been one of the most accurate predictors of midterm results, and any number below 50 means trouble for the party that holds the White House.

Unless those rights don't involve sex in some way, in which case they're totally illegitimate.

You confuse your hangups with other people's reasoning. It's not about sex. It's about bodily autonomy.

Rights inherit to the human person - embodied rights; bodily rights - are primary. This includes the right to not be a slave as well as the right to have sex how and when you like. The only acceptable impingement of an embodied right is harm to others. There is room for debate as to where the line for "harm to others" begins. Everyone will agree that it is drawn before an adult having sex with a child. Reasonable people can argue about the murky in-between rights of a fully formed human woman and the Aristotelean possibility of an embryonic "other. I've yet to see a rational argument that a grown man having consensual sex with another adult, male or female, has ever harmed a third party.

I assume what you're snarking off to the side about here is economic rights. Economic rights are second form rights, an expansion of the right to your bodily labor expanded into a public sphere. They are certainly important, but in their constructed form they are not primary like a bodily right. You actually agree with this formulation, though you may argue that you don't. But if you didn't, you wouldn't argue that corporations don't have rights (which I seem to recall you do.)

As I pointed out above, the U.S. admits more legal immigrants per year than all other countries added together. Only in the (small) minds of race-obsessed liberals is the immigration debate entirely about race rather than legal vs. illegal, low-skilled vs. high-skilled, chain vs. skills-based, the effect of mass immigration on U.S. wages, etc., etc.

and as i pointed out above, race doesn't matter at all here, because this country has this same argument about immigration for every wave of immigrants that comes over, regardless of whether they're mexican, irish, italian, chinese, german, etc.

those other discussions you bring up are much more interesting, and much more valuable in figuring out any comprehensive policy, so why don't you focus on that instead.

What about the right to self-defense? You and a whole lot of lefties here have been hostile to that one.

You confuse me with the voices in your head, Uncle Joe. I have never argued against the right to bodily self defense. I have argued against the extrapolation of the right to bodily self defense to include shooting people who throw popcorn at you in a theater, but that's because no rational person would argue that that is self defense. Go troll someone else.

My point is that many 19th century Americans didn't want Chinese and Mexicans and Irish and Italians and Jews here, period. Arguments that some were reportedly coming here illegally was ancillary to their larger anti-immigrant points. They didn't want any more showing up at our ports or crossing the Rio Grande, legally or otherwise.

Hey, you're the one who started in with the "nativist" and "racist" nonsense.

i don't think i've called you a racist yet. you do seem to be very touchy about it, though.

and i use the term "native" in reference to the people who have opposed every wave of immigrants for as long as this country has existed. you're not special; you're just the most recent in a long line.

Agreed, which is why I've repeatedly brought them up.

you should continue to do that, then. you know, instead of just throwing around tangentially related non-sequitors like

As of a couple years ago, the U.S. was admitting more legal immigrants per year than all of the other countries on the planet added together.

My point is that many 19th century Americans didn't want Chinese and Mexicans and Irish and Italians and Jews here, period. Arguments that some were reportedly coming here illegally was ancillary to their larger anti-immigrant points. They didn't want any more showing up at our ports or crossing the Rio Grande, legally or otherwise.

And a plurality of the GOP base doesn't want any more Mexicans here, period. Legality is a sop and spin put on by the acculturated Villagers to cover that fact. Joe Arpaio doesn't care if they're here legally or not.

And a plurality of the GOP base doesn't want any more Mexicans here, period. Legality is a sop and spin put on by the acculturated Villagers to cover that fact. Joe Arpaio doesn't care if they're here legally or not.

don't forget about the fact that a lot of the GOPers who oppose immigration (specifically the chamber of commerce crowd) also benefit from hiring illegal immigrants who they pay under the table, taking jobs away from working americans and hiding revenue from the IRS.

which is to say that they don't want immigration reform because talking out of both sides of their mouth works out perfectly well from their point of view.

You confuse me with the voices in your head, Uncle Joe. I have never argued against the right to bodily self defense. I have argued against the extrapolation of the right to bodily self defense to include shooting people who throw popcorn at you in a theater, but that's because no rational person would argue that that is self defense. Go troll someone else.

Hutcheson calling someone else a troll — now that's funny.

I'm not interested in a tenth debate of the Trayvon Martin case, but you weren't exactly Mr. Self-Defense in those discussions. I might be wrong, but I also don't recall you endorsing concealed carry, which is highly unpopular among your fellow BBTF liberals.

***

i don't think i've called you a racist yet. you do seem to be very touchy about it, though.

That seemed to be what you were doing in #1489, although in a semi-veiled way. Regardless, I'm not touchy about it in the least. I was just pointing out the silliness of accusing someone who moved to Mexico of being a "nativist" who fears/dislikes immigrants and/or non-whites.

you should continue to do that, then. you know, instead of just throwing around tangentially related non-sequitors like

As of a couple years ago, the U.S. was admitting more legal immigrants per year than all of the other countries on the planet added together.

Is there a single lefty on BBTF who knows the meaning (and proper spelling) of non sequitur? The above comment most certainly wasn't one. You claimed that the U.S. has "severe restrictions" on immigration and I pointed out the U.S. has the most liberal immigration policies on the planet.

don't forget about the fact that a lot of the GOPers who oppose immigration (specifically the chamber of commerce crowd) also benefit from hiring illegal immigrants who they pay under the table, taking jobs away from working americans and hiding revenue from the IRS.

??

The Chamber of Commerce is, by far, the biggest supporter of "comprehensive immigration reform" on the right.

Also, the liberals here have repeatedly assured us that illegal immigrants aren't "taking jobs away from working americans," so the latter part of the above seems like an admission against interest.

President Barack Obama’s home state could be the jewel in Republicans’ crown this November, but much is riding on what happens in Tuesday’s Illinois primary . . . Pat Quinn is facing dismal approval numbers, dragged down by the state’s basket-case economic and fiscal condition and an unpopular tax hike . . . Quinn has rebounded from being the least popular governor in the country in 2012, but his approval rating is still low, even among Democrats. The left-leaning Public Policy Polling had him at a 32 percent approval rate in November, up from a worst-in-the-nation 25 percent the year before.

4 of the last 7 Illinois Governors have gone to jail, so just losing re-election is doing pretty well.

Right. If they're illegal, they won't raise a ruckus about being underpaid or not being provided health insurance for fear of deportation. The GOP immigration policy fits in quite well with the historical preference of their base to crap all over the guy who has to work for a living.

Is there a single lefty on BBTF who knows the meaning (and proper spelling) of non sequitur? The above comment most certainly wasn't one. You claimed that the U.S. has "severe restrictions" on immigration and I pointed out the U.S. has the most liberal immigration policies on the planet.

it's a non-sequitur (spell check still says this is spelled wrong, but anyway...) because you changed the denominator. my original comment refers to the ratio of legal immigrants to illegal ones, pointing out that the flow of illegal immigrants is as high as it is because legal immigration has been severely restricted as evidenced by the rate of illegal immigration. the immigration policies of every other country on the planet is irrelevant to that point.

it's a non-sequitur (spell check still says this is spelled wrong, but anyway...)

Lose the hyphen.

because you changed the denominator. my original comment refers to the ratio of legal immigrants to illegal ones, pointing out that the flow of illegal immigrants is as high as it is because legal immigration has been severely restricted as evidenced by the rate of illegal immigration. the immigration policies of every other country on the planet is irrelevant to that point.

If anything is a non sequitur, it's the above.

If the U.S. had full employment or anything close thereto, you might have a point, but the U.S. is a country with ~11.5 million mostly low-skilled illegal immigrants and an equal or greater number of unemployed mostly low-skilled natives. Unless you're admitting that the welfare state is a failure because of the perverse disincentives it has created and/or saying there shouldn't be a minimum wage, your position doesn't compute.

Clapper, how come you failed to dig up the story of Scott Brown carpet bagging his way to NH . . .

Scott Brown has had a house in New Hampshire for decades, as well as numerous other contacts with the state. The people of New Hampshire will have to decide to what degree moving his domicile from Massachusetts matters, but Brown's association with New Hampshire is far greater than Hillary Clinton had with New York before running for the Senate there. Did that bother you, too?

I'm not interested in a tenth debate of the Trayvon Martin case, but you weren't exactly Mr. Self-Defense in those discussions.

My position the George Zimmerman is perfectly in line with supporting rational self-defense rights. Zimmerman forfeited his claim to self-defense when he stalked Martin and started a fight with him. When you instigate the confrontation, you don't get to claim self-defense. Martin had a strong claim to self-defense, of course. Unfortunately he was out-armed by the big ##### who was creeping up on him.

I also don't recall you endorsing concealed carry, which is highly unpopular among your fellow BBTF liberals.

I haven't stated any strong position on concealed carry laws at all. The back and forth he-said, she-said nature of the "debates" on the subject bores me, so I ignore you children when you get into those. In that the rights of the Constitution are the rights of the people, I have no real problem with concealed carry permits, with the caveat that I think pretty much anyone outside of near-war zone ghetto neighborhoods or perhaps the overnight trucker here or there who thinks he needs a concealed handgun to defend himself against the myriad, terrifying threats of the night is a paranoid kook.

The more relevant question is why it doesn't bother you. Representatives and Senators are supposed to represent the constituencies of their districts and states. "Moving" to a vacation house, be it Brown now, or Clinton then, or Dick Cheney magically "living in" Wyoming in 2000, is a direct contradiction of that most basic concept of republicanism.

I thought it was lame and would have voted for a credible primary opponent if one existed but would have held my nose and voted for her in the general against either Lazio or Giuliani if I lived in NY at the time.

I won't be surprised if conservatives in New Hampshire do the same.

I do think it will be interesting to see if Brown can truly clear the field in the R primary.

Ed to add: I think Bob Smith is a fool but it's not inconceivable to me that he could take out Brown in a primary if either 1) the state's hard right conservatives show up in force or 2) Democrats cross over in the open primary to make mischief

I also think Shaheen will win anyway but obviously Brown would make her spend a lot more time and money

As I pointed out above, the U.S. admits more legal immigrants per year than all other countries added together. Only in the (small) minds of race-obsessed liberals is the immigration debate entirely about race rather than legal vs. illegal, low-skilled vs. high-skilled, chain vs. skills-based, the effect of mass immigration on U.S. wages, etc., etc.

and as i pointed out above, race doesn't matter at all here, because this country has this same argument about immigration for every wave of immigrants that comes over, regardless of whether they're mexican, irish, italian, chinese, german, etc.

Except that "race" very much WAS an issue during the massive waves of Irish, Italian and Jewish immigration.** None of these groups were considered "white" by the standards of the 19th century, when non-WASP ethnic groups were routinely designated as separate (and not equal) "races". When "the decline of the race" first came into the popular idiom, it was hardly referring to blacks, and only tangentially referring to Asians. The question of unskilled labor competing with existing workers was always mixed in with tons of hostility towards, and suspicion of the cultural practices and religious beliefs of the newcomers. You only need to read the popular press from the 1870's through the 1910's for about five minutes to thoroughly comprehend this elementary observation. If anything, there's much less xenophobia directed against Mexicans today---and there's plenty of that in some quarters---than there was directed against the marginally "white" ethnic groups from southern and eastern Europe during that time frame.

**With Germans the objections were centered on language and culture---bunch of beer swilling heathens who didn't even have the Christian decency to shut down the cities they ran on Sunday.

--------------------------------------------------------

Snapper = Buchanan Republican

Bingo. In just about every respect. Buchanan also fancies himself to be a "populist".

Also, the liberals here have repeatedly assured us that illegal immigrants aren't "taking jobs away from working americans," so the latter part of the above seems like an admission against interest.

It is actually in the interest of much of big business to have a plentiful supply of illegal workers to drive down wages on certain sectors of the economy. If those workers are legalized then they have a bit more leverage and can ask for a bit more money. Of course there are other sectors that want liberalized immigration policy because it does meet their interests.

So while the Chamber is the biggest supporter of liberalized immigration policy in the GOP, that is setting the bar pretty low. And none of that has much to do with what will happen to the job market if the illegals are legalized.

The more relevant question is why it doesn't bother you. Representatives and Senators are supposed to represent the constituencies of their districts and states. "Moving" to a vacation house, be it Brown now, or Clinton then, or Dick Cheney magically "living in" Wyoming in 2000, is a direct contradiction of that most basic concept of republicanism.

At least Cheney was raised in Casper and attended the University of Wyoming. I was always more annoyed by George H.W. Bush representing Texas. That dude is not a Texan.

At least Cheney was raised in Casper and attended the University of Wyoming. I was always more annoyed by George H.W. Bush representing Texas. That dude is not a Texan.

I don't disagree. Papa Bush was a WASP from the NEC. Dubya was a Texan. My overall point is that feints and parries around "residency" in order to run for an open seat here or there, in brazen political power grabs (both personally and for your party) is utterly counter to the idea of representative, republican democracy. And anyone who claims to support the ideals of that system of governance must, by definition, oppose residency games, regardless of who's doing it.

Cool article. it talkas about Bhutan and why they rejected GDP as a framework for measuring a country.

It’s hard to overemphasize how far this framework departs from the economic metrics developed in Great Britain and the United States in the middle of the twentieth century. For most of the individuals who invented and championed the leading indicators, it was inconceivable that softer, subjective factors such as happiness and well-being would be part of the mix.

If we start eliminating states because they supplied bad presidents, we're going to need a supply of new ones. TX is out, but CA has given us Hoover, Nixon and Reagan: 3 of the worst. New Hampshire gave us Pierce, so it's out. TN gave us Polk, Andrew Johnson and Andrew Jackson. OH, VA, and NY at least gave us enough to balance things out a bit. PA gave us Buchanan; there must be others, but I can't think of them OTTOMH.

I was always more annoyed by George H.W. Bush representing Texas. That dude is not a Texan.

That I treat differently. He moved to Texas in what 1949? 1950? He was there 15 years before he ran for office.

I don't think it is important that people be born in or even raised in the state they represent. People who move as young adults and have their careers and raise families in a state don't seem to me to be carpetbaggers.

Similarly, Bernie Sanders, part of the Senatorial mecca, Brooklyn's James Madison H.S. (Schumer and Norm Coleman graduated seven and eight years later) moved to Vermont at age 23 and lived his life there. I'm sure some Vermonters think of him as that New Yorker, but it wouldn't bother me, personally. Nor did it bother me that our current mayor and our past mayor in NYC were both raised in the Boston area. They chose New York. The only thing that bothers me is people moving just for an election. Even then people moving a few miles within a region because of the oddities of district lines is different than people moving states.

is utterly counter to the idea of representative, republican democracy. And anyone who claims to support the ideals of that system of governance must, by definition, oppose residency games, regardless of who's doing it.

I disagree. I think residency mattered more in the 18th and 19th century when each state was in may ways a little nation. At this point however we really are one nation.

I think it is a bit tacky to shop for a place to run, but it is tackiness that is generally punished by the voters.

More to the point I don't think there is an important linkage between residency in a specific location and representative democracy. For example I think voting for House Reps on a state wide basis versus a district basis would truly compromise democracy.

You vote for politicians which represent you and your beliefs, and less and less in the modern world does physical location of residence matter.

More to the point I don't think there is an important linkage between residency in a specific location and representative democracy. For example I think voting for House Reps on a state wide basis versus a district basis would truly compromise democracy.

Even though it would help team D, and even though it would be legal--states can apportion how they want--I'm not in favor of at-large congressmen since I do think it's weird for western NYers to have not one conservative congressman or Austin or Houston voters to have not one liberal congressman. Drawing the lines is always a huge problem, but I suspect the alternative would be pretty bad too.

And a California ballot with 53 names for each party would go on forever!

It would be interesting game theory if you gave each voter in Cali 53 votes but allowed them to vote multiple times for an especially favored candidate.

After tightening its citizenship laws in the mid-1980s, Bhutan conducted a special census in the south and then proceeded to cast out nearly 100,000 people — about one-sixth of its population, nearly all of them of Nepalese origin, including my family. It declared us illegal immigrants, even though many of us went back several generations in Bhutan. It hasn’t let any of us move back.

The enormity of this exodus, one of the world’s largest by proportion, given the country’s small population, has been overlooked by an international community that is either indifferent or beguiled by the government-sponsored images of Bhutan as a serene Buddhist Shangri-La, an image advanced by the policy of “gross national happiness,” coined by King Jigme Singye Wangchuck in the 1970s.

Bhutan even helped inspire the United Nations last year to declare March 20 the International Day of Happiness — a cruel irony to those of us who were made stateless by the king, who was an absolute monarch when we were expelled.

Many of our ancestors were recruited from Nepal in the mid-19th century to cultivate the arable land of southern Bhutan. We are known as Lhotshampa — literally, people of the south. The Drukpas, the Buddhist elite, and the Hindu Lhotshampa had coexisted, largely in peace, until 1989, when the king introduced a “One Nation, One People” policy imposing Drukpa social norms on everyone. The edict controlled the smallest details of our public lives: how we ate, dressed and talked. The Nepali language was banned in schools, and Hindu pathshalas, or seminaries, which teach the Sanskrit scriptures, were closed.

If you ran at-large elections and didn't allow voters to multiply vote for a single candidate, the 2012 election would have put 277 Dems and 158 Reps in the House. Predicting the outcomes in non-pres years would be tough since elections would be even more nationalized. If you did have a big swing, you would have amazing turnover--if I'm looking right you could easily wash out 30-40% of the House in a single swing election

The New York Times
"Index of Happiness? Bhutan’s New Leader Prefers More Concrete Goals"
By GARDINER HARRIS
October 4, 2013

THIMPHU, Bhutan — “I think I can take President Obama one on one in basketball,” Bhutan’s newly elected prime minister said recently in an interview. “I’ve got some special moves.”

The prime minister, Tshering Tobgay, is four inches shorter than Mr. Obama, so beating the American president in hoops might be a stretch. But after his surprise election this summer, almost no one in South Asia doubts that he has special moves. And he is renowned for his grit. [...]

Several factors went his way, including a currency crisis last year and threats from India just before the vote to withdraw vital financial support. [...]

HE has largely abandoned the country’s signature gross national happiness measure, its alternative to gross national product. Introduced in 1972 by King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, gross national happiness was seen as a way to balance the country’s gradual embrace of modernity with an effort to preserve its traditions.

Mr. Tobgay’s predecessor, Jigme Thinley, had traveled the world promoting the happiness measure, making him a popular figure among Western academics and literati but less so among his constituents.

Mr. Tobgay’s catalog of modest promises during the election campaign included a motorized rototiller for every village and a utility vehicle for each district. Happiness was not on his list.

“Rather than talking about happiness, we want to work on reducing the obstacles to happiness,” he said.

Those obstacles remain substantial, including a growing national debt and high unemployment. Bhutan’s infrastructure, still woefully inadequate, has been built almost entirely by Indian companies and laborers. At first, Bhutan relied on Indians because few Bhutanese possessed the necessary skills. Now, a more educated and urbanized younger generation is refusing construction work as beneath it.

“The bottom line is that we have to work harder,” Mr. Tobgay said. “We need to grow our own food, build our own homes.”

He lamented that so many of Bhutan’s youths are voluntarily unemployed, saying, “If we can restructure the construction sector to make it more attractive, that should provide a lot of jobs.”

If you think Boston and GA's 2nd districts are "one nation" you really are running a high fever.

I don't know how to break this to you, but they are really part of the same nation.

More to the (less literal) point, why do you think that anyone who could be elected to either of those districts would represent them poorly based on where they had lived prior?

Put another way, you claim that not respecting residency is poisonous to democracy, OK then how long is long enough? How long does the "carpetbagger" need to live in the new location? How long does it take to become like a resident? When does the magic occur? 1 month, 6 months, 1 year, what?

You seem very threatened by anything challenging the might of GDP, or you are very angry about Bhutan. Or something.

The article I linked to is still interesting, and trying to measure a country in ways other than GDP is I think a very good idea (no matter how well or poorly implemented in Bhutan). Doesn't mean I think GDP is irrelevant (obviously it isn't and I don't), but the idea of challenging orthodoxy is valuable.

And a plurality of the GOP base doesn't want any more Mexicans here, period. Legality is a sop and spin put on by the acculturated Villagers to cover that fact. Joe Arpaio doesn't care if they're here legally or not.

And all this time I thought you spent the holidays in the swamp, Sam, not the desert. Apparently, you know every Republican living outside of the Beltway.

Similarly, Bernie Sanders, part of the Senatorial mecca, Brooklyn's James Madison H.S. (Schumer and Norm Coleman graduated seven and eight years later) moved to Vermont at age 23 and lived his life there.

#### those Madison ########, Greg. At Midwood a few blocks north, we counted as alumni Emmanuel Lewis (he graduated a year after me), Steve Solarz, Woody Allen, and one of the ladies from "Puff the Magic Dragon," plus a way better football field.

#### those Madison ########, Greg. At Midwood a few blocks north, we counted as alumni Emmanuel Lewis (he graduated a year after me), Steve Solarz, Woody Allen, and one of the ladies from "Puff the Magic Dragon," plus a way better football field.

And the guy from Sha Na Na!

And Sean Wilentz!

And you had a shot at getting the mayor before the DiBlasio sure in the primaries.

I kid. I kid. Lots of my wife's friends were Midwood kids. Great school.

At first I assumed you meant one of the ladies from the group that recorded that song, but there's only one lady in Peter, Paul, and Mary. And Mary Travers appears to have gone to The Little Red School House until she left school in the eleventh grade. You've got one of the guys from Sha Na Na, though.

No not a New Yorker--a carpetbagger, reverse carpetbagger from the South to NYC. Married a Brooklynite so lots of lore around the schools and parishes etc. Most of my wife's friends from elementary went to Midwood. On Madison, I was always fascinated by the oddity that three different Madison alumni represented three different states at the same time before Franken spoiled the reunion and knocked off Coleman.

If a fairly moderate Republican is odious, Mouse, I can only imagine what you think of Minnesota politicos to Coleman's right.

It is not Coleman's politics which were odious. The man himself is. Politically he was fairly run of the mill GOP, actually to the left of most of the current GOP crop. There are plenty of politicians on both sides I find personally odious, and Norm is one such.

I don't though think it's nice to refer to 2002 Mondale as a dead guy. A little stiff, maybe...

I really don't think Snapper has said anything as racist or anti-Semitic as Pat B. is prone to saying.

Thank you, I would hope not.

I'm also not an isolationist, as this discussion of the Crimea certainly shows. I do agree with Buchanan on a lot of economic matters. He predicted what would happen if we went down globalization/free-trade path, and has been proven 100% correct.

Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, a father-of-three, was said to be a 'fanatical' supporter of the country's opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim - jailed for homosexuality just hours before the jet disappeared.

It has also been revealed that the pilot's wife and three children moved out of the family home the day before the plane went missing.

It comes as FBI investigators say the disappearance of MH370 may have been ‘an act of piracy’ and the possibility that hundreds of passengers are being held at an unknown location has not been ruled out.

You seem very threatened by anything challenging the might of GDP, or you are very angry about Bhutan. Or something.

The article I linked to is still interesting, and trying to measure a country in ways other than GDP is I think a very good idea (no matter how well or poorly implemented in Bhutan). Doesn't mean I think GDP is irrelevant (obviously it isn't and I don't), but the idea of challenging orthodoxy is valuable.

Dear Bitter Mouse,

People should know that the ostensible implementation of a happiness index as the primary measure of national output in Bhutan led to a mass ethnic expulsion, an underdeveloped infrastructure, and the country's youth being "voluntarily unemployed". It is fortunate that Bhutan has a new prime minister who recognizes human nature for what it is and is willing to challenge the happiness orthodoxy.

Is adopting happiness as an economic metric supposed to lead to government action encouraging the production of happiness? Even Thomas Jefferson knew that governments are instituted to secure people's unalienable right to the pursuit of happiness, rather than to happiness itself. Perhaps you find that notion disconcerting.

I do agree with Buchanan on a lot of economic matters. He predicted what would happen if we went down globalization/free-trade path, and has been proven 100% correct.

To be clear, the United States has free-trade agreements in place with only 20 countries and just a few of those have markets of any appreciable size (Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Israel, Korea, and Mexico).

To be clear, the United States has free-trade agreements in place with only 20 countries and just a few of those have markets of any appreciable size (Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Israel, Korea, and Mexico).

To be clear, our market is essentially wide open to every country, especially China, but also India, Vietnam, Indonesia, etc.

That we don't receive the same treatment from them is a huge indictment of the fecklessness of our trade "policy", which seems to be based on the premise "enabling Fortune 500 companies to do anything they want to enrich their executives and shareholders".

As folks here know, I have not given up hope that the administration will take meaningful action against Russia for what has happened in Crimea and poised to take place in the rest of eastern Ukraine. However, it's still worth noting Russian opposition leader Gary Kasparov's recent tweets:

Tonight, amid his usual barrage of criticism leveled at Vladimir Putin, he’s turning his fire on President Obama and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.

Discussing President Carter’s foreign policy, he compliments the former President’s “Very tough stands on human rights.” President Obama, however, he gives lower marks. In response to another tweeter, he writes that when it comes to the crisis in Ukraine, “so far, Carter looks like Churchill in comparison.”

Hillary Clinton, the presumed frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, doesn’t get treated much better. “Hillary was the captain of the Titanic that was US-Russia relations as Secretary of State. Her as admiral of whole fleet makes me nervous!” Kasparov tweets.

That we don't receive the same treatment from them is a huge indictment of the fecklessness of our trade "policy", which seems to be based on the premise "enabling Fortune 500 companies to do anything they want to enrich their executives and shareholders".

I agree that free trade should not keep out sugar from the Caribbean. Mexican Coke über alles!

So you support the Wall Street Journal view that true free trade should be put in practice all over the world but not how we get from here to there?

Scott Brown's move is weird and a little different from the typical carpetbagging because he's already served as an elected official in one state, and is now moving to another to run for the same office.

Bobm -- it would help if you explained your thoughts in your initial posts instead of just cutting and pasting.

So you support the Wall Street Journal view that true free trade should be put in practice all over the world but not how we get from here to there?

No, I don't.

I think free trade maximizes total wealth, but the distributional consequences aren't worth the extra economic growth. It isn't worth it to get an extra 0.25% GDP growth when all of it and more accrues to the top 1% of the population, and the bottom 80% see their wages falling.

Free trade is, and will be, disastrous to the labor providing classes in the advanced economies. As any simple economic model of trade would have predicted, trade liberalization has caused returns on labor in the rich countries to plummet, while returns on capital have skyrocketed. That's how you get record stock markets along with stagnant, and falling wages.

Scott Brown's move is weird and a little different from the typical carpetbagging because he's already served as an elected official in one state, and is now moving to another to run for the same office.

Obama needs to continue ramping up economic sanctions against Russia (and encourage Merkel, Cameron, and others to do the same), while announcing plans to provide anti-tank and MANPAD weaponry to Kyiv.

I don't know how to break this to you, but they are really part of the same nation.

No, they're part of the same representative democratic republic. Some of the townies up in the corridor share some national traits with half of some of the families down in GA-2, but they are far from the same nation. The entire point of the American experiment is to put together a "national" republican polity that ignores nations.

President Barack Obama has expanded sanctions related to Russia’s involvement in Ukraine, on Monday signing an executive order targeting seven Russian government officials and using an existing order to sanction four Ukrainians, including the country’s former president.

The order authorizes Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to work with Secretary of State John Kerry to impose asset freezes and travel restrictions on “any individual or entity that operates in the Russian arms industry, and any designated individual or entity that acts on behalf of, or that provides material or other support to, any senior Russian government official,” the White House said in a statement.

Though senior aides to Vladimir Putin are targeted, the Russian president isn’t on the list because that would be an even more dramatic step to take, a senior administration official said. “It is a highly unusual and rather extraordinary case for the United States to sanction the head of state of another country,” the official said on a conference call with reporters held just after the sanctions were announced. Putin will, though, feel the effects on those close to him, the official said.

As any simple economic model of trade would have predicted, trade liberalization has caused returns on labor in the rich countries to plummet, while returns on capital have skyrocketed.

This is oversimplified. Advanced countries still have a productivity edge, and have seen steady productivity increases. Returns on labor ought to be going up, but they aren't, for reasons that are only partly connected to free trade. A glance at world inequality doesn't show that low-inequality countries are particularly protectionist. The reasons are largely political.

Free trade is, and will be, disastrous to the labor providing classes in the advanced economies.

Meanwhile, the average consumer in the United States has benefited. I have to believe that the presence of millions of illegal immigrants are a way bigger threat to working-class Americans than the admittedly imperfect trade system currently in place.

Though senior aides to Vladimir Putin are targeted, the Russian president isn’t on the list because that would be an even more dramatic step to take, a senior administration official said. “It is a highly unusual and rather extraordinary case for the United States to sanction the head of state of another country,” the official said on a conference call with reporters held just after the sanctions were announced. Putin will, though, feel the effects on those close to him, the official said.

The idea is to let Putin eat a jelly donut while the rest of the government does pushups. The hope is that Putin's Gazprom buddies will them beat him up with bars of soap folded into blankets.

Meanwhile, the average consumer in the United States has benefited. I have to believe that the presence of millions of illegal immigrants are a way bigger threat to working-class Americans than the admittedly imperfect trade system currently in place.

No way. 10 million illegal immigrants can't compare to the economic impact of 300 million Chinese factory workers, and 150 million potential Indian service workers. The impact of illegal immigrants is also clustered in specific industries, while the off-shoring/out-sourcing wave is universal.

This is oversimplified. Advanced countries still have a productivity edge, and have seen steady productivity increases. Returns on labor ought to be going up, but they aren't, for reasons that are only partly connected to free trade. A glance at world inequality doesn't show that low-inequality countries are particularly protectionist. The reasons are largely political.

Why should productivity gains ever accrue to labor when capital can simple relocate to where labor is cheaper? US labor has no bargaining power, given the ability to off-shore/out-source at will.

Hell, they're off-shoring large segments of the finance department in my company. What hope do those people have for wage growth, when their jobs are being moved to a country where the wages are one fifth as much.

I certainly think it nailed one of the aspects of the show, in that it's about proverbial "white girl" problems or "First world" problems, depending on what internet meme you're into.

But (for me anyway) the crux of the show isn't that, though it is related. It's that Hanna is a lying, whining, manipulative, sociopath*. For a while I kind of worried that I was just seeing things that I wanted to rather than what the show was actually about, but the more I watch the more I'm pretty sure. We're not meant to feel sympathy with the "problems" these girls face. Well perhaps the others in certain situations, but usually not for the reasons the characters seem to think they deserve sympathy - but never Hanna. It seems to me anyway, the show demands and expects the viewer to take Tina Fey's position - whatever problems Hanna has they are of her own creation. She nurses them like children and uses them whenever possible to manipulate the people around her.

The ending of the recent episode where she makes up a story in order to pretend the deaths of other people effect her so that her boyfriend won't think she's an inhuman monster was genius.

*EDIT: Her continued abuse of her dad is great for this. There's a moment where he finally calls her out for manipulating how much he loves her, and she says "but how could I be manipulating you if I'm not even aware that I'm doing it?" Which I don't think could sum up her character any better.

Disagree. The average rich consumer has benefited. Getting to but lower quality, cheap goods, in a crappy store, in order to offset your falling real wages is hardly a benefit.

Instead of an upwardly focused economy where working class people strove hard not to shop at places like WalMart and dollar stores, we have middle-class people frequenting these places just to help them get by.